Gramatik

Denis Jasarevic, better known for his stage name Gramatik, is an electronic artist from Portorož, Slovenia. His current genre falls under a mixture of hip-hop, glitch, electro, and dubstep.
Early life
Jasarevic's love for music began at an early age ...

Denis Jasarevic, better known for his stage name Gramatik, is an electronic artist from Portorož, Slovenia. His current genre falls under a mixture of hip-hop, glitch, electro, and dubstep.

Early life

Jasarevic's love for music began at an early age of three, when his mother would catch him listening to American funk, jazz, soul and blues from his older sister's cassette tapes. As he got older, he was entranced by the hip-hop culture and listened to artists such as DJ Premier, Guru, Rza and Dr. Dre.

By the time he was 13, Jasarevic had already started producing his first hip-hop beats on an early PC. He later began sharing his tracks through the online music store Beatport, which helped him create his following throughout the U.S. and Europe. Beatport was Jasarevic's gateway to emerging as an electronic artist and landing his first agent in the United States, Hunter Williams.

Career

After Jasarevic signed with his new agency, he moved to New York and dropped his first hip-hop album, Street Bangerz Vol. 1, in 2008. This album was on the Top 100 Chill Out charts for six months. In an interview with Britt Chester, Jasarevic said, "But homie, I didn't even expect the album to sell one track on Beatport, nothing else was sold on beatport except techno and house. When I dropped my stuff and it started selling, I was really surprised, since I'd never seen that boom-bap goodness sell on Beatport. So when it sold, I was like 'Wow!' These were some hip-hop beats, but it was labelled 'Chill Out' on Beatport".

A year after releasing his first album, Jasarevic signed to the label, Pretty Lights Music. At that time, the label consisted solely of American electronic artist Derek Vincent Smith, also known by his stage name, Pretty Lights. The Pretty Lights Music label gives all their music away for free, which ties in with Jasarevic's own philosophy about, "freeing music by making music free." Speaking of one of his albums, #digitalfreedom, Jasarevic says, "My new EP bares the title #digitalfreedom. As an artist that based his entire career on the platform of free file sharing, I'm dedicating it to the fight against severe internet censorship bills we've been hearing about so much in the past months. Bastards have been trying to cripple the internet on a global scale with bills like ACTA/SOPA/PIPA and I'm sure there's more of them coming, so this one goes out for spreading awareness! Reject them all, they will never stop the sharing, the Internet is our realm, DIGITAL FREEDOM!"

In 2013, Jasarevic announced he would be leaving the Pretty Lights Music label to form his own label, Lowtemp. Jasarevic came up with the name Lowtemp by abbreviating "low temperature" meaning his tracks from this label will be "cool." His label now consists of artists Exmag, ILLUMNTR, Gibbz, BRANX, and Russ Liquid.